


Gentlemen of Fortune

by yunitsa



Category: The Devil's Whore
Genre: AU, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-05
Updated: 2009-01-05
Packaged: 2017-10-02 14:51:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yunitsa/pseuds/yunitsa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>There is always the open road.</i> AU, taking off from a scene in the second episode.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gentlemen of Fortune

**Author's Note:**

> The epic bandit!AU. I fear this is less a fic than a laundry list of Things I Like, with an extra dash of high romantic melodrama, and I had far too much fun writing it.
> 
> I must apologize to everyone acquainted with the relevant history and geography (figuring out the timeline was a task in itself), people who have ever fired a flintlock pistol, historical figures whose fates have been altered within, the inhabitants of Oxfordshire and surrounding counties, and Dorothy Dunnett, from whom I have shamelessly stolen one line. My crimes against research are too many to enumerate.

  
_So I produced my pistol, and then produced my rapier / Said 'Stand and deliver', or else the Devil take you._

  
"Honest John locked up _again_," Angelica said, counting off coins. "His wife will need money."

Sexby looked up from sharpening his knife, as the bag dropped beside him: heavy with money that might see him through another few months, away from the army he had left. "And will you go to London still to give it to her?"

"Aye; I intend to."

He turned his head over his shoulder to look at her: even with her face tired and bloodless, dressed in the clothes of a man she'd killed, she still seemed terribly young. "You are a known thief and murderess now, madam," he said, as gently as he could. "And the man you've stolen from, and whose friends you have helped to kill, is a rich Member of Parliament. His name is Joliffe; he is often in London. And he will know you on sight, and surely have you hanged."

If it were possible, she would have paled still further. "Then there is no life for me there," Angelica whispered, after a moment. "Nor anywhere. Power and money will still out."

"Aye, madam -- I have always said so." He turned back to his knife, speaking casually. "But there is always the open road. Master Joliffe is not the only rich pickings on the way to London."

"You would have me turn highwayman?" He could hear the reluctant smile in her voice. "Or highwaywoman? Truly such a thing has never been known in the world before."

"The world we live in is turning, madam." He smirked down at his hands. "Though one cannot rob carriages in skirts."

"Nay, Sexby," she answered after a moment, more seriously. "A life full of danger, but with no purpose or meaning? Stealing for every meal and waiting to be hanged? That is no life for me. It should be no life for you, neither."

Sexby bit his lip as she spoke, staring out unseeing at the swaying trees of Wytham Wood. When he replied, it was not as he had intended: "And yet this is your chance to fight the tyranny of power and money," he said. "To do some real Levelling instead of speaking of it only. You can still find ways of getting your earnings to the Lilburnes, or to the poor, as you wish. And mine as well, less what we need to live."

"Why, Sexby!" She half-laughed with surprise. "You would turn Levelling highwayman with me?"

"I've heard it works better with a pair."

He could tell she knew it for a serious offer and was considering; and did not turn lest he prejudice her decision with his own ill-favoured face. The day was hot; and now that he was no longer alone in the woods, he wished that he might bathe.

At last, "Very well," said Angelica. "But mind you: I will not be the bait only."

"Nay, indeed." He did turn now, taking renewed pleasure in the sight of her in her men's clothes. Would all women look so, he wondered, if only one were to put trousers on them? "That was a good shot you fired, madam, at the bandit who held me. And from horseback, too."

Angelica frowned. "It was luck. My hand trembled."

"Then you must learn to shoot fairly. Would you have me teach you?"

She was still gazing upon him with suspicion. "In truth, I have no wish to kill again, if it can be helped. Can we not rob them without?"

"If you control your aim well, it will be your choice whether you wound or kill them. But you must show no weakness."

"Teach me, then." She climbed to her feet, picking up her pistols.

Sexby led her ten paces from the tree they had been sitting against, and bid her aim toward the centre of the bole. She knew how to prime and cock the weapon already: there was less to teach her than many boys sent into the army, that knew not more than which end of a sword to hold.

"Your stance is wrong, madam," he said, watching her. "It will throw your bullet to the right. Here," he stepped up behind her, placed one hand on her hip and the other at her shoulder.

"Sexby…" Angelica said quietly, warningly. He could feel her minute shaking under his hands: well, she would lose that, if she wanted to shoot.

"I mean only to correct you," he murmured against her ear, forcing her body to pivot. "Feel the weight on your right foot, thus…"

"Yes." She set her back straight, though it brought them into contact from hip to shoulder, and took aim again. Sexby adjusted her raised arm, sighted along it to the large knot in the very middle of the oak tree. _Now_, he meant to say, when she fired.

The recoil sent her back against him in a shock of warmth through their clothes -- she must have felt how much he wanted her then, amid the smells of pine and gunsmoke and her hair, but gave no sign but an exhaled breath. It was the greatest effort of Sexby's life to step back, and squint toward the oak bole: though truly, that last was not needed. He had felt the shot hit true, and so had she.

She would never go with him, he told himself, if he made demands upon her. And in that moment, even the thought of bedding Angelica Fanshawe was not equal to his desire to see that look of cold triumph in her eyes again.

"Twice more," Sexby said, low and roughly. "And then with the left."

*

They took their first real prize only scant days later, on the road at Shotover Plain: a spot well-known for its danger from thieves.

Since they had only the one horse (on which they rode pillion, subjecting Sexby to the delight and torment of Angelica's arms locked tight about his waist), they left it tied some ways off and concealed themselves as footpads, by the side of the road. The clatter of carriage-wheels sounded soon enough: Angelica met his eyes and pulled her kerchief over her face, loosening the weapons at her sides.

She rose first and stepped out onto the road in one fluid motion, her pistols raised. The coachman cursed and swerved to avoid her. The horses reared; Sexby feared that she might be trampled, coming up alongside her, but she stood firm and led the hooves settle scant inches before her.

"Watch the coachman," she told him. "I'll see to the carriage."

Sexby nodded, eyeing the frightened man from under the brim of his hat. No outriders for protection -- were they that fortunate?

"Take care," he told Angelica, as she reached for the carriage-door -- biting off the _madam_ that rose to his lips. "There may be servants within."

She shot him a look that may have been a smile, under her scarf. "Yes, I can conceive it." Of course, she had travelled in such carriages herself, once.

Sexby edged along to be nearer her, while keeping his pistol trained on the coachman. Angelica threw open the door, her weapons at the ready: no one within but a pair of painted women in voluminous skirts, clutching at each other; and footmen too underfed to be much threat.

"Stand and deliver," Angelica told them; and Sexby nearly laughed, but that it would distract her attention. Here was a highwayman indeed.

Or highwaywoman: that much must have been obvious, despite her dress. "Who _are_ you?" one of the ladies demanded, staring at Angelica in horrified fascination.

"My name does not concern you," she said, over the blade of her rapier. "Only that I will have your life or your coin; or rather both, if it prove necessary."

Sexby, hanging back to guard the driver and footmen, watched her admiringly while she collected the gold from them. There was something particularly effective about that educated lady's voice emerging from behind a brigand's hat and kerchief. He was half-inclined to give her all his money himself.

When they had let the carriage go on its way, they stood together upon the empty road. Sexby saw that Angelica was trembling, her arms wrapped light about her chest; but he did not touch her.

"No one has died," he said instead, quietly.

"Aye."

"And we have earned a score of guineas in gold and jewels, to spend as we would."

She nodded again.

"Then we shall go on?"

"Aye, sir." And then, under her breath but fiercely, "Oh, _damn_ you."

Sexby said, "I fear that is done already."

Later they got very drunk off a firkin of ale they bought at a local tavern, and Angelica fell asleep on a blanket by his hip, curled up like a child. And in the morning, they went on -- and the second time was easier, and the third was easier still.

*

"Get undressed, Sexby," Angelica decreed one afternoon, while they were setting up their camp by a stream in Shotover forest.

He could not quite manage words in response, so only looked at her speakingly over the rim of his cup.

"Washing-day," she explained. "This poor horse cannot bear the weight of us, and our clothes, and the dirt upon them. Even on the road, there must be limits to our savagery."

His shock turned to amusement. "And have you ever washed a shirt in your life, my lady?"

Angelica looked up at him with a grim smile, digging through her saddlebags. "I am no one's lady: you forget the years I spent in Oxford, with little but the clothes upon my back. And now, disrobe, sir. I bought us both clean shirts when we last stopped at Wheatley, and soap."

They bathed without much awkwardness, now, turning their backs to each other. Afterwards, the new shirt felt decadent against his clean skin, like a glimpse of a life left far behind.

It was a warm summer night, but Sexby built up a fire for them to dry their clothes by and boiled some dried meat and vegetables in a pot of water; while Angelica finished the washing, humming cavalier songs quietly under her breath: _ask me no more where Jove bestows_ and _go and catch a falling star_. Love and riddles, by the sound of it.

They sat eating under the swaying trees and the open sky, while the twilight deepened, and then passed a flask of cheap wine between them. Almost against his own volition, he found himself telling her about the battle of Naseby, where King Charles had lost the main of his army: describing the fog that had covered the field, sketching out the battalions' movements with a stick in the dirt.

"Why are you with the army no longer, Sexby?" Angelica asked him quietly, when he had done.

He shrugged. "Newark and Oxford have surrendered, and Charles Stuart is held a prisoner. There is no more war for me to fight."

"But the army has not yet disbanded."

"Fairfax and Cromwell will not disband it. They call it the New Model Army, and they will need it, to take their share of power in the politic war that follows this. But it is no role of mine."

"You live for fighting only, then?"

"I did once." The wine had lightened his head and loosened his tongue, and he wished to talk no longer of the army. He turned his head and watched her as she sat by the fire, her dark hair loose over her shoulders, wearing only the white linen shirt. She had put her cloak over her knees but shifted it with the heat of the fire, showing glimpses of pale leg and thigh. And he could almost swear that she was watching him sidelong as well, half-smiling, echoing his glances as in a courtly dance.

He reached toward her like a compass needle, pulling north; and in the next instant found her eating knife at his throat.

"I have killed a man thus," Angelica said, almost absently, her eyes wide and dark in the firelight.

Sexby swallowed, against the press of the blade. "I meant not to offend you."

"What, then?" She lifted the knife a fraction, but kept it near. "Think you because you are a man and I am a woman, and we are here alone, this means you own me? I told you before, Sexby: I will be no man's whore."

_Is that all you could be to me, then?_ But he did not speak. What could he offer her -- words of love he did not mean, and which had no place in this dark forest? As for money, a home, a wedding band -- all of the other things one could offer a woman -- he did not have those to give, and she did not need them from his hand.

This was lust only: soldier's comfort. Yet Angelica Fanshawe was no soldier, to be bedded in silence under cover of night. He felt an irrational surge of anger against her, then, that she could make him feel such things -- could combine within herself the forbidden lure of the King's court and the wildness of battle, bat her lashes at him one moment and draw a pistol on him the next. A noble lady thief in a dead man's clothes: for a moment, he truly saw her as the monster that Joliffe had called her.

He could force her, here and now, despite her blade -- he could reduce her back again to something that he understood; for he was stronger and better-trained, and they were both so far outside the law that nothing further was needed to convict him. The world already saw her as his strumpet; for the world could imagine nothing else for her to be.

And she would know this. And thus she refused.

"Keep a weapon by you at night," Sexby said at last, his voice rough, "but not against me."

She spoke his name, quietly; but he turned his back on her under his cloak, and pretended to sleep: cursing her, and himself, and the fire that still burned in his blood at the very sound of her breathing.

*

When he woke, he was alone in the clearing, and the cloak that covered him was not his own.

He rose and ate his breakfast, very calmly, keeping his usual ear out for twigs snapping and any odd noises from the surrounding woods. She could be out answering nature's call, or bathing, or hunting for food: she would return shortly. But the horse was gone with her.

The rest of his clothes were also vanished from where they had been laid out before the fire, and his hat; her own garments remained. He tried on the trousers, but she had taken them in to fit her, and he did not wish to burst the rows of careful stitches.

After an hour and more passed, Sexby could no longer pretend that she was likely to come back. He could not even blame her -- she deserved better than to steal, and sleep in the open, and daily risk the hangman's noose. If London was closed to her, there were other towns where she could go -- there was Scotland or the Continent -- where she would never be known, and could make a life for herself. Could marry a respectable man, and bear his children, and have the fine things she had missed.

And then, of course, there might now be a reward out for a highwayman at Shotover. But he would not think her so base, if he could help it -- there must be (Sexby snorted) some honour yet among thieves.

He felt passing ridiculous, sitting by an extinct fire and wearing a strange merchant's cloak over shirt and bare legs. He got up to check the rabbit traps he had set out the previous night; skinned and dressed the beasts and built up the fire for roasting. Dinner: and then he would sort through his things and set off again. He was not much worse off than he had been, when she first found him -- he would manage well enough.

The sun was high and the rabbit was browning on the spit when he heard movement in the woods; and then Angelica rode into the clearing, mounted on one horse and leading another.

"Madam," Sexby said as calmly as he could, lifting his hand from the trigger of his gun. "You have made free with my hat. And my clothes."

"Mine were not dry." She took it off, shaking out her sweat-damp hair, and dropped it on the ground before him. She had unbuttoned his leather doublet in the heat. "Don't worry, Sexby. There is no shame in having your property stolen by one of the most fearful footpads in Oxfordshire. And now," dismounting easily, "footpads no longer, but proper highwaymen in truth."

"Where got you that horse?"

"The stables at Wheatley Manor. The family is gone, and it is little guarded. We could move in and live like kings there, if we wished."

"And be captured like kings," he said.

"Still the open road, then. Turn your back, so that you may have your clothes to wear again."

They were still warm from her skin and her scent when he got them, but he pretended not to notice it. He had learnt his morning's lesson.

*

In August, they were nearer London than they perhaps ought to have been -- in the county of Buckinghamshire rather than Oxford. Sexby had noticed their trail getting closer and closer to the capital, as though by accident, but did not yet comment upon it. Angelica spoke restlessly of the Lilburnes, of the money piling up in their saddlebags (though they had buried some in Shotover), of the fragmented news they heard that summer about the complex tug-of-war between various factions in the Parliament, and the Army, and the supporters of the captured King.

Sexby had no objection to stealing at the eastern and not the western end of the London-Oxford road. But he would have protested before they got much further -- he would not have allowed her to risk her life, more than their trade was already doing.

There was a confidence in Angelica Fanshawe now such as he had never seen before, when she was a fine lady with a great house and fortune at her disposal. But for a wanted criminal to walk into Newgate prison would take more than courage and will -- it might break even the luck of the damned.

They took a merchant riding at dusk, near a crossroads. He must not have been travelling far, for he was alone with only a pageboy to bear a light for him. Not the rich pickings that could be had from a gilded carriage, but an easy purse was better than none.

By then they were well-accustomed to their work, and few dared oppose them when commanded to stand and deliver. Which was why Sexby was so surprised when, after he had relieved the man of his coin, the little page tried to thrust the lighted torch into his face.

He ducked back, out of instinct; batted the brand away from the boy's weakened hold and aimed his rapier at his chest. Momentarily blinded in the sudden darkness, he could hear the merchant -- unworthy of such a loyal defense -- already riding hard away.

The flame had scorched him: Sexby smelt the singing of his own hair and beard, and knew that his face would pain him later. It had been needless, entirely, and he was angry: drawing back his arm, he prepared to drive his sword forward into the boy's breast.

"Sexby, wait!" The page paused his snivelling at the sound of her voice, startled as they always were. "Would you live, boy?" she asked him.

Eyes adjusting to the fading light, Sexby saw him nod mutely.

"Then you must perform a service for me. Go to London: carry a message for Elizabeth Lilburne, whose husband rots in Newgate. Tell her to meet us at the sign of the Red Lion in Chipping Wycombe, four days from now. Do you understand?" Another nod. She pulled some small change from her pocket. "Give her half of this for her travel, and keep the rest for yourself. But if we find that you have cheated or betrayed us, be assured, we shall come and find you. And my companion shall have his will."

The boy darted away, looking as though he might run all the way to London -- he kept glancing over his shoulder to make sure that they did not follow. When he was out of sight, Angelica sighed and crouched down to clean her sword.

"We kill no children, Sexby," she said, her voice so weary that he could not contradict her. "This isn't the army."

*

Chipping Wycombe was a mill town, and stank accordingly -- if all the pamphleteers of London knew the stench that went into making the paper they covered, Sexby thought, perhaps they might be less prodigal with their pens. And yet he doubted it: living in London must immure one to smells.

Angelica had planned well, for it was a market day, and the town was full of people for them to be lost among. They took a private chamber at the Red Lion Inn, above the dark and crowded common room where tobacco-smoke coiled among the rafters. Their chamber lacked a fireplace, but its coolness was a relief after the press below.

"You know well, this could still be a trap," Sexby said, lighting the one candle they'd been left with.

Angelica went to the window and drew back the shutters: it was unglazed, the oilcloth rolled back on a summer's evening. "We can get out onto the roof from here," she said. "The stables are just below. Keep your pistols ready."

He whistled softly between his teeth. "I had thought, if ever we were captured, that I should claim to have forced you to it, to try and save you hanging. But now I think I would not dare."

Angelica's smile glinted briefly in the candlelight. "Good," she said.

They settled down to wait. The room had a single table, with two chairs around it and a settle, on which Angelica curled with her knees drawn up and her head tilted back, hand loose on the pistol at her hip. At the first noise in the corridor, she straightened; Sexby stood up silently, so that his chair-legs did not scrape on the bare floor.

The door did not lock; its handle moved tentatively, and then it swung open and Elizabeth Lilburne drew back her hood and came forward into the room.

"God be with you, Edward," she said, having closed the door behind her. Then she hesitated, looking closer. "Mistress Fanshawe? The boy said there was a noblewoman, yet I did not credit it…"

Angelica smiled, wide and open. "Aye, Mistress Lilburne: I am much changed since you have seen me last. Please come and sit." She had seen it before Sexby, that Elizabeth was with child again. "How fares Honest John?"

"Well in body, but restive in spirit." Elizabeth shook her head, fond and troubled. "Confinement does not agree with him, for all he's had time to grow accustomed to it. And then he cannot publish -- they search all his visitors, down to my very skirts."

"The dogs," Sexby growled.

"John would tell the world what he thinks should be done about Parliament, and about the King -- while there is yet time for the world to listen."

"And what is that?" Angelica asked, sitting forward.

Elizabeth glanced about, as though she were still being watched at Newgate; and then she told them -- of a Parliament to be elected by all free-born men, and King Charles to be tried as a man of blood. Sexby watched Angelica's face while she spoke; but it did not change.

"Must the land have a King's blood in its soil, then?" she asked quietly, at last. "Will it not be enough that he is kept imprisoned, or exiled?"

"Imprisoned or exiled, he should still be King, and England not be free of its bondage. So John says."

"And what say you?"

"I understand his argument," Elizabeth said quietly. "Yet I would rather see no more blood."

"I fear it must all end in blood, madam," Sexby said. "It has gone too far for else. And better it be his than ours."

"Ours?" Elizabeth gave him a sharp look, quick as a bird. "If you can tell who we are, in all this tangle, then you are a wiser man than I. For what my John writes, both sides would call treason."

"And yet it must be printed," Angelica said decisively. She reached under the table and drew out their money-bags. "Will this help, think you?"

There was a moment's silence, while Elizabeth counted through them; when she looked up, her face was pale and amazed. "But this is nigh-on fifty pounds!"

Angelica nodded. "Bribe the guards with it. Buy food and clothes for you and your children, and what comforts may be had for poor John in gaol. Whatever remains, I trust you will find a good place for."

"But however came you by the money?"

"You had better not ask, Mistress Lilburne," Sexby said.

Angelica touched her hand lightly. "Say they are gifts. They cannot go back to whence they came -- I pray you will accept them, for our sake. For the sake of all the Levellers, working however they might to bring justice upon this earth."

Elizabeth Lilburne met their eyes in turn, gravely, and then gave a curt bow of her head and secreted the money-bags within the folds of her skirts. When she was done, she rose and put up her hood again.

"You will not travel back to London this night?" Sexby asked.

"I have a friend on a farm nearby, who will give me shelter. She would shelter the two of you as well, and gladly."

Angelica shook her head. "'Tis better for all if you are not seen with us too long."

"Angelica…" Elizabeth Lilburne hesitated. "I am not one to tell you, what as a woman you ought or ought not do. And yet I fear for you. This is a dangerous course that you pursue."

"Well I know it." She came and took Elizabeth's hands, and kissed her like a sister. "But yours is a dangerous course also. There are none but dangerous courses left for us, in these days."

"Write to me at my lodgings in Cheapside," Elizabeth said. "And God be with you both."

*

God was with them until late in October, when their luck ran out within sight of the new manor house at Princes Risborough.

Perhaps it was the word of their success that foiled them, for this rich merchant had hired trained mercenaries to take the place of his coachman and attendants, and to ride in the carriage with him and his wife. Mercenaries, as Sexby had once been. They were clever enough not to reveal themselves at once, but to wait until Sexby and Angelica were committed, reigning up their horses on either side of the decorated carriage. Then they threw back their cloaks, and struck.

Seven against two: they must truly have expected the Devil himself to attack them. Sexby killed one man and hit another in the sword-arm with his pistols; and heard Angelica's fire on the other side of the carriage, and a stallion's pained cry.

"Shoot at them and not their horses!" he shouted, too late to do any good. "They will only cut at you from below!"

There was no time to reload. He crushed a man's nose with the butt of his pistol and drew his rapier, fighting to cross to Angelica's side. She was battling three of them, thrusting a little wildly -- not yet full-trained. Sexby edged his horse alongside hers and drew them off, ignoring the noise from the carriage -- the merchant shouting curses and encouragement -- concentrating only on dealing death and pain with every economical stroke. He had his cloak wrapped around his arm: when one of the mercenaries got too close, he raised it to shield his face. His right arm was flagging, and his left numbed with the hit.

"We must away," he breathed to Angelica, when he could: they were close enough that her unwinding hair tickled his neck. "We cannot face them all."

"Give the word," she answered, and parried.

With one last desperate lunge, he thrust both his opponents back. "Now!" he shouted, and they broke away together, riding at full gallop toward the shielding trees. Sexby was counting under his breath: one, two, six, seven. None of their pistols had had multiple barrels -- they would need time to reload. Eleven, twelve. Depending on how well-trained they were, and how many yet breathed…

They were within the shade of the trees, and riding clear away with no sound of pursuit behind them: the merchant would not be so foolhardy as to risk that and leave himself unprotected on the road, all for the uncertain chance of a citizen's reward. But it was another mile further before they felt secure enough to slow their horses against the threat of jutting tree-roots, and finally dismount -- both breathing hard and drenched with sweat; and something else, in Sexby's case.

There was a tree, wide and solid, just behind him: he allowed himself to sag against it for a moment, while his vision went black at the edges. The bundled cloak fell to the ground from his loose fingers. "Too near," he murmured -- whether aloud or not, he did not know. "That was too near by far." He hoped he had not bled a trail through the woods for the Army to follow.

"Sexby, you are injured. Hold still."

He did so, with an effort, while she tried to staunch the blood on his arm, first with her handkerchief and then with strips torn from the bottom of her shirt. At another time, he might have enjoyed the glimpses of bare skin that showed when she lifted it; or her warmth as she leaned over him. But now, it was no help against the chill that shook him. The wound hardly hurt; he could not move his fingers, and knew this for a bad sign.

"We must have this tended," Angelica said. "If only we could go to Fanshawe -- it isn't far, and I know a physician there…"

"Fanshawe House is held by Thomas Rainsborough," he heard himself answer, "for the Parliamentary army. He is a good man and a Leveller, a friend of Honest John. He will not give us up if we give him no cause for it."

"Lie?"

"Tell him who you are. Say we were attacked upon the road."

"All right," she said.

"You should change…into your skirts first." Her voice was becoming distant, and his own, but he saw the faint smile cross her face.

"Get on the horse, Sexby, and mind only not to bleed to death. I shall handle the rest."

He watched her gloved hand guiding the bridles as they walked, until the horse stumbled over a stone and the darkness overtook him.

*

When he woke, Angelica was sitting next to him, stirring a bowl of porridge. She was wearing a light blue dress, with her hair down in ringlets over her shoulders -- he'd have hardly recognized her as the same woman who had fought at his side, if not for her eyes.

"There you are," she said quietly. "Are you hungry?"

He lay in a large curtained bed in a spacious chamber, the windows shuttered against the afternoon sun. Shafts of light through the cracks showed the atomies of dust hovering in the air.

She lifted the bowl to his mouth, but the sight of it made him gag. She took it away.

"The surgeon gave you drugs against the pain. He said they might turn your stomach. But as soon as you can, you must eat."

The surgeon. He turned his head, with painful slowness, to where his left arm lay against the bedclothes. It was heavily bandaged. "My hand…"

"You did not lose it. It was a near thing."

"Thank you, madam."

She looked down. "I have done nothing. You must rest, and get well."

*

A few days later, he was strong enough to go down for supper with Angelica and Thomas Rainsborough.

He had seen little of her in the meantime: if she had nursed him in his illness, she seemed glad enough to leave the duty now. She wore a red gown, in rich velvet; he wondered where she had got it. It suited her. It was like a wall between them.

Sexby sat and spooned food into his mouth, one-handed, for the medicine wearing off had left him hungry, and he did not know what to say. Rainsborough, seated at the head of the long table, was speaking of Cromwell's final victories over the last of the King's men, and the new order that should arise now, with the end of the war. Then Angelica asked him about his family in the New World and he spoke of that -- while she listened, her dark head propped up on one hand, the wrist turned so that the lace cuff fell elegantly over it.

The first time that Sexby had risen from his sickbed, he had gone to the window to breathe the fresh air. It was a fine day, and in the field below the house, he had seen Angelica in her blue dress, sitting on a hillock and reading, her head held just so. He had stood there, enjoying seeing her like this, at peace and at home, so different from the things that she had lately suffered. And then Rainsborough had ridden up and dismounted beside her, and they had walked inside the house with her hand resting on his arm, talking and laughing together. A beautiful pair.

Sexby scowled into his food.

"You do not speak, Sexby?" Angelica asked. It was the light, lilting tone she had used while she was still mistress of this house, not the business-like accents of the road.

"I must offer my thanks to you, Edward," Rainsborough said, "for protecting Mistress Fanshawe so well upon her journey. It is not safe to travel in Oxfordshire these days -- they say there are bandits on the roads."

Angelica's laughing eyes met his for a moment; but this only served to infuriate him further. If they were discovered, it was no joking matter. "I only do my duty," Sexby answered. "She pays me for protection."

"No money can buy that kind of loyalty, I think -- you nearly gave your life for hers. But if there is any reward that I can add, it is yours."

"Thank you, sir," Sexby bit out. "All that I ask is time to recover the use of my arm, and then I shall be riding on to find other work. Mistress Fanshawe now appears to be well-protected."

Angelica came into his room after supper had ended, while he was painfully attempting to remove his shirt one-handed. "Why, what is the matter with you?" she demanded in a hissed whisper.

"I am an invalid, madam, if you have not noticed. I am scarred, and damaged, and not fit to be seen in polite company. Not in the company of such a man as Thomas Rainsborough."

"Don't be ridiculous. Let me help you with that shirt."

"Come not near me, madam." He knew he must look like a cornered rat, his arm still awkwardly bent, backing away from her.

Angelica's face grew set and grave. "It is a long time now since you have spoken to me thus. I had thought we were fellows, Sexby."

"Fellows!" He tugged the shirt free, not caring that it ripped, and faced her head-on. "What fellowship can there be, between such as you and such as I? You were a lady playing at being a bandit -- I, madam, am such in truth."

Her cheeks flushed with anger. "Did you think I was playing, when I starved for two years in Oxford? When I stuck a knife in the throat of a man who thought to buy me for pigeon pie? When I fought with you, and stole with you, and risked death with you? How can you say such a thing!"

"And what would your handsome Rainsborough think, if he knew what you were?"

At once, all the blood fled from her face. "You wouldn't tell him."

Sexby turned away, more pierced than he would admit. "Of course I would not. But you cannot hide it forever."

"I know," she said, her voice weak, and he could not help but step nearer at the distress he heard there. "There is no future. There is only the past…"

She was grieved, at the thought of losing Rainsborough. What was Rainsborough to her? A well-favoured, useless idealist, whose true nature she could scarcely know as yet. (Some treacherous part of his mind whispered: _A good man. The kind of man that she deserves._)

Against his own better judgment, roughened with pain, he demanded, "Do you lie with him?"

Angelica reared back. "Sexby!"

But, much as it would hurt, he _must_ know the answer. "Tell me if you have lain with him, madam!"

For a moment, he thought that she might strike him. A gently-bred noblewoman would never have done such a thing; but there was a glint of the highway now in her face. Yet she only said, coldly and evenly, "What right have you, sir, to ask me such a question? You are not my husband or my brother; my honour is not your concern. If I am a bandit and a murderess in the eyes of the law, then that at least makes me free. Free to lie where I will -- to choose whom I will. I have paid dearly for that freedom, and you shall not take it from me."

Her words sobered him. He had never meant to take it -- after having known her, a wild and natural-born thing since Wytham Woods, he had never meant to force her back into the cage where Harry Fanshawe and his like would have kept her. Yet she had invited that cage herself, Sexby thought bitterly, once she had dressed in velvets and poured out the wine at Thomas Rainsborough's table, and taken his arm as though she were not perfectly capable of running and climbing in far more rugged places than the fields of Fanshawe House. For all of Rainsborough's beliefs about rights and liberty, she could never be both the women that she had been. He hoped, for her sake, that she knew it.

"Then you will have your choice," Sexby said quietly, "and I wish you every happiness in it. I will leave you on the morrow, lest I bring any more unwelcome reminders of your past."

"But your arm--"

"I thank you. It will heal."

And he shut the door, none too gently, in her face; for he could not bear that she -- that anyone -- might see Edward Sexby reduced to foolish tears.

*

He was true to his word: by first light, all his few possessions had been packed, and his horse saddled for the journey. He kept both his pistols loaded and cocked, though only one was in reach of his right hand, and concealed the sling in a fold of his cloak: he did not wish to look like easy pray for others of his own profession.

He did not expect Angelica to come and see him off -- he had hoped he might be spared that. But she ran in, her hair disheveled, just as he was on the verge of climbing gracelessly into the saddle. At least Rainsborough was not with her, even if he could imagine her fresh from his bed.

She looked as though she might have been weeping. "Will you truly go?" she asked.

"I cannot else, madam."

"And shall I ever see you again?"

"If ever you are in danger," Sexby said helplessly, earnestly, "if ever you have need of any service that I can render, I shall always be at your command. Otherwise, you must not look for me."

She hesitated, twisting her hands in the folds of her skirt. At last she blurted, almost defiantly, "Thomas Rainsborough has asked me to marry him."

It was a fresh wound, stabbing sharper than any other had before. He almost wished, rather, that she had fired upon him: cold iron did not burn so deep. More easily than he would have thought possible, he vaulted up onto his horse and took the reins in his one good hand.

"Then he is a fortunate man," Sexby said, and rode away from Fanshawe House, and from its once and future mistress.

*

He went back to the main road and then for a mile or two further, until he reached the first crossroads; and there he concealed himself behind a hedgerow and prepared, with near-suicidal resignation, to ply his trade. A lone highwayman was less successful than a pair, particularly when he was still incapacitated; but Sexby still had to eat, and her precious cause still needed money.

Thomas Rainsborough would never know where the gold he'd receive would come from: his wife -- his beautiful, well-born wife -- would never tell him. But Sexby would know, he thought. And while it would not be enough -- while it seemed that nothing would be enough for him now, apart from her -- it would be something.

It was not long before he heard the distant hoof-beats. Four or more horses, by the sound of it -- only very wealthy men travelled so. He waited with pistol in hand, ready to spring, when he heard a mounted voice shouting: "Turn off here for Fanshawe, men -- I must speak with Colonel Rainsborough."

Not a carriage after all, but a troop of horse. And more: he knew that voice.

Sexby's mind went hot and blank, as in the midst of battle. He rose silently, when they had gone by; ran silently back to his horse and rode hard after them, back toward the elegant rise of Fanshawe House. The wind whipped hard at his face, bringing moisture to his eyes. He only hoped he was not too late -- for all the good his presence might do.

He found them all in the courtyard of the stables: Rainsborough and his lady had just returned from a morning ride about the estate, it appeared, to find the horsemen arriving. Sexby left his own mount by the gate and approached on foot, sword drawn, concealing himself behind a column hung about with twists of rope.

He could see the side of Master Joliffe's round face from where he stood, smiling like the cat that had eaten the canary. "Why, Colonel Rainsborough," he said, drawling out the words. "Here I have come to advise you that I was scouring Oxfordshire, on General Cromwell's orders, for a known murderess and whore -- only to find that you have taken the wench into custody already! Bravo to you, Colonel."

Despite the wind-blown flush raised high in her cheeks, Angelica had gone pale: her polite smile of welcome fixed upon her face. "I don't understand you, sir," Rainsborough said tightly. "The woman you seem to accuse is my lady Fanshawe, the mistress of this house."

"My lady Fanshawe." He smiled even wider. "Yet if she is the mistress of this great house, what has she been doing all this summer and autumn in the company of a known ruffian, robbing honest men's carriages upon the open road? What was she doing in Oxford, April last, selling herself and then killing and stealing from those who took her up on the offer? What was this whore doing in a dead man's clothes, consorting with devils in Wytham Woods?"

"I am no whore, sir," Angelica whispered.

It was not a denial of all he said, but Rainsborough seemed to take it as such. "There must be some mistake," he protested.

"No mistake," said Joliffe with relish. "I would know that pretty face anywhere, dress her up as you will. And I would see her hanged at Tyburn for her crimes."

"You'll be damned first," Sexby said, coming out into the open with his pistol in his one good hand. He did not know what else to do: he aimed for Joliffe's chest, though four swords were immediately pointed at him.

Joliffe's eyes had widened with a surfeit of malicious pleasure. "The Devil himself, come to damn me!" he exclaimed. He was fond of his nicknames. "Will you fight alone, Sir Highwayman, against five armed men?"

"Not alone," Sexby said. He risked a glance to his left. "Rainsborough, will you not join me? If you call out for your men, the odds will be in our favour."

"And fight a Member of Parliament?" Rainsborough was white-faced, looking between them all. "Edward, I cannot. If you will only give yourself up, I am sure that a fair trial…"

"A fair trial would find us guilty," Angelica said, in a low and even voice. "And a jury of London burghers would have us hanged." She looked at Sexby briefly, under her lashes, but he understood the command there: _Wait. Not yet._

"_You_ will surely be hanged, madam," answered Joliffe. "As for your pander, there is no reason why we should not shoot him now, like the common rat he is. It would save us all a deal of trouble."

"No!" Angelica cried out, at pitch well-suited for the stage, and darted before Sexby to shield him with her body. Behind the voluminous swell of her skirts, he felt her pull his left-hand pistol from its holster.

"Out of the way, madam," Joliffe commanded her. "You will have your chance at death soon enough, once you are tried in London."

Reluctantly, Angelica edged away: she was weeping, though her face was hard and set, rapidly blinking away the tears. She did not approach Rainsborough, but stood off to one side, out of the line of fire. She had lost her husband, Sexby remembered, to the firing squad.

"Take aim, men," Joliffe ordered. They brought up their muskets. Sexby gulped a deep breath, glanced heavenward, remembered Angelica singing in Shotover forest. And then she raised her pistol at the corner of his vision, and shot Master Joliffe straight through the heart.

It might not have been over then, as his ponderous body fell to the straw-covered ground, if not for Thomas Rainsborough. "Do not fire!" he called out, with all the force of his Colonel's command. "Shall you shoot down an Army man and lay hands upon a lady, on that leech's orders?"

One of the men lowered his weapon, looking down bemused upon Joliffe's lifeless body. "We'll report back to the General, sir, and see what's to be done. If you will keep these two in your custody, in the meantime."

Rainsborough nodded. The three of them remained in the courtyard, still as statues, while the soldiers rode away; until Sexby noticed that Angelica was swaying on her feet -- staring out past his shoulder in terror, toward something no one but her could see.

At once, Rainsborough was at her side, supporting her tenderly. "Do not fear, madam. I shall protect you -- I shall not allow these men to heap such calumnies upon your head."

"There is no calumny," Angelica said, quiet and shaken. "I am as you see me -- a murderess and a thief. Sexby and I have been robbing carriages these five months. Where do you think the Lilburnes have been getting all that money?"

"A Leveller, then, not a thief," he sounded desperate, entreating. "I have been called such names myself, and worse -- and shot at men in battle, to save my own life. Angelica, if you will come away with me…"

Sexby could bear it no longer. He slid his rapier back into its sheath with an audible sound, so they would notice him.

"Edward." Rainsborough straightened, regaining some of his self-possession. "You must flee this place. I shall say that you escaped from me."

"But Cromwell--"

"I have quarrel enough with Oliver Cromwell already, about the ways in which this country should be governed. This will not add to it. And after your loyal service, I do not think Oliver would knowingly have ordered your death."

"Then you have more faith than I," Sexby said, lifted his hat in a salute, and left them. At the edge of the court he turned to catch one last glimpse -- to watch Angelica's trembling frame enfolded within Thomas Rainsborough's arms: as a turtledove seeking its mate, as the final scene in a drama, before the curtain falls over it.

*

He made camp that night in a wood some miles from Fanshawe, constructing a makeshift shelter from sticks and his bits of spare cloth, and raking up some leaves and needles for his bed: his injured hand was not too great a handicap. It was a warm enough night for late October; the frosts had not yet come.

He shot a partridge and roasted it for his supper, washing it down with clean water from a nearby stream. Nature was kind to him, and his life had been spared that day. He could not ask for more.

He had finished his meal and was preparing to bed down for the night when he heard the approaching hoofbeats. Sexby did not bother to stamp out his tell-tale fire, but only lay his pistol across his lap and waited to meet the interloper -- strange meetings could take place in the Oxfordshire woods, and he was prepared for friend or foe. Though of friends he had few enough.

Nothing, however, could have prepared him for the rider who entered his clearing -- hat pulled down low and kerchief tied over the face, but unmistakable. He might have known that it was she, simply from the sight of her gloved hands upon the reins.

Angelica jumped down and pulled away the scarf, smiling at him as she came forward into the light. "Well, Sexby?" she said. "Why do you sit there silent yet again, and with your pistol trained upon me?"

He set it aside, but did not rise. "Madam, what do you here?"

Her smile faded a little. "The same as you, I would imagine -- looking for a warm place to spend the night. I am lucky to have found you in all these miles, for the trail was often cold."

"And does your husband not object to you riding out at night -- in man's clothes, and to visit a confessed villain?"

"I have no husband living, sir," Angelica said. "What can your meaning be?"

"Your husband in prospective, then. The one who will shield you from the reach of the law, and take you away from men like Master Joliffe. To America, perhaps -- to the New World, where you may both live as you wish."

"And what makes you think, Sexby, that it is Thomas Rainsborough I wish to live with?"

He cursed his fool heart, that hammered so loudly in his throat. "Has he not forgiven you, then?"

"Think you that I need any man's forgiveness?" Ah, but she was magnificent -- her eyes blazing in anger under the brim of her hat. And then they softened, and Sexby found it even harder to meet their gaze. "Thomas would cling to an ideal of a woman, which has never existed upon this earth. He says he loves me, but he does not _know_ me. He has never seen me truly -- not as you have done. For me to stay with him would be a cruelty upon us both."

She was coming toward him, her riding boots soft on the forest floor, and Sexby rose so as not to be at a disadvantage. His thoughts, his feelings were all in turmoil.

Angelica took off her hat and dropped it, shaking out the loose dark waves of her hair. "Now Sexby," she said, both commanding and tentative, "you must speak."

"I know not what to say." She was so near -- he had never thought to see her again, after that morning. "Do you truly not mean to marry Thomas Rainsborough?"

"I shall have no husband, sir, while the laws of this land make wives the property of their men." And then she smiled again, a slow and wicked smile that faded into tenderness. "But I will take a lover, I think, and stay with him faithfully, for as long as the fates shall spare us. If he will have me."

"Madam…" He reached out toward her with his one good hand, stopping before it could touch the sleeve of her shirt.

She took pity upon him: stripped the gloves from her hands and placed her fingers over his lips. "If you can love a blind fool and a gentleman of the road," she said, "then, truly, I am yours."

Her hand stroked over his cheek, tilting his head as she leaned up to kiss him -- a gentle brush of the lips, light as a promise. Not nearly enough, to quench the raw need that rose up within him, with renewed force, at the first touch of her skin.

He pulled her back when she would have drawn away, buried his hand in her hair and kissed her hard. Angelica laughed against his mouth -- no passive vessel, this, but an equal, her fingers callused where they framed his face. He could not doubt that she wanted him, even as the fact of it filled him with amazement -- when he finally let her go, he knew that he was smiling like a fool, breathless and giddy.

"Well, do you believe me," she said archly, flushed in the firelight, "that my intentions are dishonourable?"

They kissed again, his hand tugging the doublet from her shoulders, pulling away to curse under his breath when he could not find purchase. "Oh, madam, you've chosen a cripple..."

Angelica shrugged out of it herself, and set to undoing his own buttons and laces. His eyes were drawn to her collarbone, bare within the open points of her shirt, and the swell of her breasts below. "Take me to bed, sir," she told him -- nearly her roadside voice, but warm as he had never heard it before, "and we shall pass the time somehow, until you have use of both your hands again."

They came together in the shadows of the cobbled-together tent, on a bed of leaves rather than feathered quilts or roses -- nothing like the idle dreams he had indulged in, while still a mercenary stationed in Fanshawe House, but sweet and fiery and true: knowing he held a woman in his arms and not a spirit in a white satin dress. When she moved over him, for his injury's sake, he felt far less possessor than possessed -- and gave himself to her fully, for he was hers already.

He had been clever, even on washing day, and she had never seen the blue garter that he had held so carefully concealed within his sleeve. Soon, he resolved, he would show it her -- so she might see how long ago his love had begun, even when he had had no honest words to name the feeling.

Angelica gasped above him, biting her lip to whiteness to stifle her cries, and he damned Harry Fanshawe -- yet again -- for an incompetent fool. He drew her closer to him; kissed her breast and her neck and her mouth, and held her while she trembled; even as his own release found him in a flash of drowning light.

They were chilled in the autumn night as the sweat cooled on their bodies and their breathing slowed. Angelica pulled on her shirt again -- smiling at the way the sight made his eyes darken, somehow more erotic than even her bare flesh had been -- and drew their cloaks over them, resting her head upon his right shoulder.

"Edward…Art convinced, now, that I will not leave thee?"

"Aye," he said wonderingly, circling her waist with his good arm. "But where shall we go and what shall we do, two wanted men such as we are?" Perhaps he might find work on the Continent, once he was healed -- yet Sexby could not imagine her happy there, as a mercenary's camp-follower; and he did not long to rejoin an army himself.

"Elizabeth has friends in Yorkshire who would let us stay with them a while -- away from the hunt for us, and from the wrangling in London."

"Would you not be bored," he asked her, "away from the wrangling?"

Angelica settled down more comfortably against him, propping her chin upon the back of her hand. "I thought that I might write a treatise, upon the present subjugation of women. All of those who have spoken on it before have been either libertines, who would only have her be common property rather than private; or lone men who did not care what happened beyond, so long as their own wives and daughters had a measure of freedom. I aim to cast a wider net. John Lilburne would help me get it printed."

Sexby imagined her sitting down at a desk with quill in hand, or striding about the room and reading passages out to him. Then he thought further, and found himself grinning up at the gaps in their shelter, which showed the clear night sky. "On Thomas Rainsborough's press?"

"Whyever not, if it be anonymous?...Oh, but do not gloat, Sexby," Angelica said: he could hear, now, the fondness mixed with the exasperation in her voice. "It doesn't suit you."

And in truth, Sexby knew, he had no right to gloat. It had all been nothing but a lucky shot in the dark, to net him such an unlooked-for store of hope and delight; and his hand had trembled.

*

_end_


End file.
